SVR's Dennis Steele's Campaign Is Clearly in Nowhereland in New Poll

Updated At Bottom

Last month the first poll that gave the public a sense of the state of the post primary gubernatorial race told us that things aren't quite as Thomas Naylor, baas of the Second Vermont Republic would have us believe.

For years Naylor has been touting his commissioned polls from UVM's Center for Rural Studies that used a highly suspect methodology to get results that he's claimed show that 8% (2006), then 13% (2007) and then later 11.5% (2008) of Vermonters eligible to vote would support Vermont secession. (see section on Naylor's polls in the column to the right → ) Has he a newer poll for 2009 or 2010 that shows a continuance of that downward drift? He's not saying.

Factoring in the margin for error, Naylor's "polls" that he's released would seem to indicate that somewhere between 10-15% of Vermont's eligible voters at some time supported secession, and whose actual numbers he at various times has "extrapolated" to be 50,000 to 60,000 of Vermont's voters. His claims to that level of support for his daffy ideas about Vermont secession and his ongoing war of words against an "Israeli Mafia" are truly unsupportable.

In the meantime, according to one poll taken a month ago,

"The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey shows Shumlin, the state Senate president pro tempore, picking up 49% of the vote, while Dubie draws support from 46%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and three percent (3%) are undecided."

That's a far cry from Naylor's projections but in this poll there was no specific mention of Connecticut native Dennis Steele.

So far, every previous electoral attempt in Vermont by the seceshers, real or imagined, has failed miserably. Despite that well known fact, Steele's been making absurd claims of winning in debates where he's repeatedly duck important questions.

Last November, according to a post at the Free Vermont listserv by secesher Gaelan Brown, Dennis Steele said that he's been rejected by his community because of his talk of secession:

"... (I)n Kirby... you've said repeatedly that you've lost a lot of credibility ("shunned" is the word you've used, I believe) in your town as a result of your public secession-talk."

Now comes the VPR Vermont Poll with some even worse news for the secessionistas.

"The poll also finds that the five other candidates in the race for governor got about one percent support each."
- VPR

A whooping 1%!! of support, give or take (but my money's on take). Odum predicted the five way split last night. It looks like Steele's Kirby neighbors have got his number, too. For those who follow gubernatorial races here in Vermont, it's well known that even a stray cat that gathers the five hundred signatures required to get on the ballot can get one percent. 20 years ago one candidate in a gubernatorial debate was televised doing beadwork while reportedly off his meds, and he got 1½%!

We'll get solid poll results come this November 2.

Check back here next week for even more bad news about the SVR and VTCommons seceshers.



Update 1:34 PM: Apparently still reeling from poll results released 6 hours ago, the self-styled media expert, propaganda minister for the Free Vermont crowd and honcho-in-chief for "Vermont Commons", Rob "I Can't Believe This Is Happening Again" Williams, churns a week old debate post (you remember, the one Dennis Steele claims that he won) with a dead video link in lieu of anything on his candidates (Lt Guv wannabe Garritano bit the bag, too) abysmal showing in the VPR Vermont Poll hours before his post.

Here's an idea for Rob-o. He can hype the results as showing that his boys are closing in. Remember, Rob-o, based on their performance thus far, the only way is up!

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